Wednesday, January 18, 2012

Stefan Michalak, a mechanic by trade and amateur prospector, who died in 1999, came across a cigar-shaped craft while on a weekend prospecting jaunt near Falcon Lake, which lies between Manitoba and Ontario, Canada; this on May 19th, 1967.

Mr. Michalak, as the story, presented in the link tells, was burned by some kind of exhaust that emanated from the craft he chanced upon:

According to Jose Caravaca’s developing hypothesis, dubbed Distortion, Mr. Michalak was intersecting with a presence that co-mingled its imagery with Michalak’s to provide a scenario, for reasons not clear, but palpable.

However, would Señor Caravaca’s scenario create something as palpable as severe burns which eventually produced nausea and illness that resembled radiation poisoning?

Or did Mr. Michalak create his burns by psychological inducement, much like those who create stigmata out of their religious fervor?

Or do we need to concede that Mr. Michalak confronted a flying machine that was either a military prototype or a craft from another world or universe?

Here’s Mr. Michalak’s drawing of the machine he came across:

A reading of Mr. Michalak’s account and the follow-ups by UFO researchers and mavens indicates to me that Mr. Michalak wasn’t faking his encounter or producing a hoax.

His background and subsequent illness mitigate against a fraud.

If he created his stigmata-like burns marks from a psychological or mental thrust, we would have a new category of psychiatric etiologies.

If he was the recipient of a Distortion scenario, the instigators were a little harsh in their instigation of the “drama” – not an impossibility, but a bizarre encroachment on reality as we know it.

My feeling is that Mr. Michalak met up with a tangible machine, and suffered physical and mental trauma afterward.

There would still be a possibility that the burns where self-inflicted by the use of an iron grid device.

What exhaust system would only produce the square grid pattern? Mr. Michalak stated that his clothes caught on fire. Would there not be a burn pattern to the abdominal area showing this...a more defused pattern radiating out from the abdominal center?

It would have been nice to have a JPG file that included all pages of the police report. Nevertheless, it does show that without stating it directly, the reporting officer's opinion was that Michalak was inebriated. Also in the TV segment, the patterned burns are noted to have resembled chemical burns more than radiation burns. If Michalak came into contact with a highly toxic substance it could explain the burns, their recurrence, and his illness.

What toxic substance could he have found at Falcon Lake? Or could he have been elsewhere before appearing near the lake in his frantic, disheveled state?

Perhaps he indulged elsewhere and while there stumbled into something toxic (a solvent) or something that emitted a potent toxin (machinery of some type; more likely because of the burn pattern), then hightailed it to the lake where he concocted an explanation for his now obvious patterned burns.

Who knows what the marital dynamic was between him and his wife around the subject of his using alcohol? Maybe the poor guy had to pretend to go to the lake just to enjoy a couple of beers covertly.

I'm not in any way saying Michalak was an alcoholic or out of his mind drunk and hallucinating. Maybe he just would rather have made up a wild story about how he got burned than be nagged incessantly by a disapproving wife.

@PGEverything within your posts indicates that you suppose your way to the "white lie" conclusion. I apologize for stating as much, not really but lest I be perceived as egotistical, there it is anyhow.

Your approach with respect to your speculations in this case are utterly pseudo skeptical.

@TimWe don't know if the burns were exhaust related or not. We have zero idea about the technology the man stated he witnessed. Could have been intensive micro wave emissions, could have been chemical. No one knows and that includes the doctors that examined him after the initial event. If these were chemical burns, there should have assuredly been residue beneath the skin surface that would have been more than enough to determine the agent involved.

@Rich"The question is what was the origin of the machine?"

I don't know and I would honestly imagine no one else knows either.

Incidentally, this case has no distortion whatsoever within it unless you imagine it to be there beyond all reason. This would be a case where the facts according to distortion would have to be inserted rather than extracted. If anything IMO, such a case would represent a highlighted absence of distortion as do hundreds and hundreds of others where little real "witness oriented and derived" nonsensical high strangeness is found to be reported.

It is more likely "the craft" or the source of the burns was terrestrial.The presence of a air exhaust as a cooling mechanism suggests an probable air intake,both of which suggest an atmospheric device, not a hermetically sealed spacecraft. Another clue is perhaps nuclear ( radiation emitting) devices cannot be air cooled.However as Tim mentioned, the burn pattern is too symmetrical "too perfect" . Back in the day, there were all sorts of goofy ideas about nuclear powered this or that, trains, planes, etc that were taken seriously.A spacecraft that was nuclear powered was not that far off what was possible..theoretically.Then we have Cash Landrum..etc.It could be that due to the known toxic nature of this power source, military folks were playing with these devices behind the scenes.The dose he received if he did was very low or he would have died within a few days.We are left with two possibilities if these burns were not self inflicted, both of which defy reason as we know reason. Two bad choices. Now what? I tend toward a terrestrial source, an experiment but I am far from being convinced of this.

@Bruce"It is more likely "the craft" or the source of the burns was terrestrial."

As evidenced by what exactly?

"The presence of a air exhaust as a cooling mechanism suggests an probable air intake,both of which suggest an atmospheric device, not a hermetically sealed spacecraft."

There is so much assumption here Bruce. Where is there ANY evidence of a "cooling mechanism"

Where is there any evidence that this reported technology involves space travel?

"We are left with two possibilities if these burns were not self inflicted, both of which defy reason as we know reason. Two bad choices. Now what? I tend toward a terrestrial source, an experiment but I am far from being convinced of this."

Actually, we are left with ten trillion choices Bruce because we don't have a clue. There is no evidence whatsoever that these burns, or whatever this injury was, were self inflicted. If anything, the complete lack of evidence to suggest that this man self inflicted these wounds only serves to further corroborate his account exactly as it is stated to have happened.

When we put ourselves in the center of a hypothetical speculation as a means to judge non human authenticity, you are pretty much wasting your time. It's an illogical precept no different than attempting to prove a negative and only serves to detract from furthered progressive analysis of what the report contains. Inserting negative hypothetical detracting suppositions that are assumed to have been a more "likely" explanation, without so much as an inkling of substantiated evidence, is not good science in the least. It's really not even good speculative reasoning. Seek to explain based upon speculation, not disclaim based on supposition. One builds, the other goes forward in reverse.

Unless we have real facts to prove otherwise, this account is fairly cut and dry. It contains virtually NO high strangeness.

We do not have the moral or ethical right to call this man a liar or a hoaxer unless we HAVE substantiated evidence that states otherwise.

Why is it apparently so difficult for human beings to disassociate themselves from the idea that they are automatically the biggest duck in the pond? If anything, the entirety of nature would seem to indicate otherwise as we are typically the most obtuse and out of place critter there is.

If this event happened, heat was vented to the atmosphere. as well as perhaps radiation. We know these effects by countless examples. What other source do you attribute it to? A cooling system dissipates heat to keep any mechanism within stable operating parameters ie normal, internal (operating) temperature. Any machine operating in the atmosphere requires cooling if it has an "ignition" source unless it is a balloon. These are not speculations, they are facts unless you can refute them.If you read my post I never called this man a liar.Ask yourself a question what is measurable versus what is not. All of your post is speculation that is not measurable.I assume by the slant of your post, you "believe" this event was an encounter with a extraterrestrial craft. Your refuting my agnostic stance indicates this. I said was "I tend toward a terrestrial source, an experiment but I am far from being convinced of this."So what are you refuting? You lost me.

"If this event happened, heat was vented to the atmosphere. as well as perhaps radiation. We know these effects by countless examples. What other source do you attribute it to?"

We are not dealing with countless examples Bruce, just one. This event happened or we are both artfully lost to the notion of adept time wasting. The considerations of perception are an awesome thing to ponder in situations such as these. When we have adopted in considerable tribute, absolutely NO prior established high ground from which to gain a logical point of reference, the focused (contextually constrained) imagination blooms in response because it's automatically driven to do so where such a propensity exists. With real and trepidation tinged respect for your intellect, (holy smoke!), this is merely the linear reasoning of speculative analysis in action. It's precisely the same impetus, albeit, his was an extreme and utterly punishing example, that Thomas Edison used to drive himself to subconscious reconciliations with respect for many of his more potentially timed innovations.

A man given to fixations within real and established propulsion and power generation oriented refrigeration means, is wrought to understand the reasoned speculative necessity to first dismiss such notions. If not, all that man can offer speculatively within the consideration is temporally rooted south of the speculative reconciliation threshold. In short, we can't get to the goal because of a knowledge barrier and that's precisely why Einstein made a point of stressing that the imagination was far more powerful than knowledge. It has to be as one is a linear byproduct of the other wherein interdependency actually interprets speculative reality accurately via the fruition of discovery. It's a meritorious affair for certain.

(2)Bruce"Any machine operating in the atmosphere requires cooling if it has an "ignition" source unless it is a balloon. These are not speculations, they are facts unless you can refute them.

I believe you know Bruce that ANY facts you present I realize are facts plain and simple. What I was attempting to state was that the hypothetical focus or attachment of the common ground facts that you provided, as related to the event in consideration, are philosophically aligned south of the speculative reconciliation threshold. It's a set up of foregone conclusions that's (IMO of course!) quite unfair to monstrous thinkers like yourself. It's over before it begins because we are attributing the technology matter as being most likely terrestrial in nature, but to further the reasoning there is absolutely nothing we can directly point to in an effort to substantiate such a conclusion. It's easy to imagine though, isn't it. Privately funded, ultraCovert, engineering by some of the highest levels of human intelligence imaginable. All the while being accredited with extremely exotic technologies that operate with complete grace and impunity while remaining "under or beyond the radar" in clandestine precision. It's just more of that tricky forward in reverse reasoning we get lured into in the sense that we are forced to limit the context we allow ourselves to explore speculatively via as much established precept, of yes, that very real factual stuff we call knowledge. It's hard to imagine as much as being nonconstructive, but we aren't dealing in capacities alone here, we're dealing in the contextual processes of linear reasoned speculation with regard to an utterly unknown anomalous event. Yes, of course everything you promote as factual, is factual, assuredly. I don't even recall refuting these facts to begin with come to think of it. This being because of how I have routinely gauged your intellect's knowledgeable accuracy, but the grounded temporal reference to these establishments, are as you understand the hypothetical situation to possibly have been in application. Without providing a clear detracting example of this offsetting terrestrial technogoodness, or really even defining it, the human explanation IMO is like every other explanatory angle seemingly. I only state as much because the explanation results in more or less putting us right back in the religiously marginal belief system's faith box if you know what I mean.

And I honestly never meant to insinuate you did. By this point in the post I was in all my glory and lost to the moment wherein speculative reasoning was being championed victoriously over it's weaker opponent's skeptical dismissal and ultimate defeat. What a grandiose maroon. (self reference) Nothing personal in this "personal attack" tirade as much as wake up cry to people to stop short of inflicting the indignation certain UFO witnesses have suffered as a result of being just plain truthful to the very best their ability. This is a very serious thing as many of these people have had their world rocked the WRONG way as a result of formerly established knowledge being socially trumpeted as being more powerful than the imagination's forward oriented progressive capacity for greater discovery.

"Ask yourself a question what is measurable versus what is not. All of your post is speculation that is not measurable."

The act of speculation is not rooted in math or any other temporally based system. Philosophy itself is a THOUSAND times more potential than math! It gives math LIFE. Break free the speculative chains that bind thee Sir! :-)

"I assume by the slant of your post, you "believe" this event was an encounter with a extraterrestrial craft."

Assume only that I assume NOTHING Bruce, this being with anything but apathy as well as the sincerest of respect for anomalous activity. That's the point here. Not allowing ourselves the luxury of Occam's fainting couch with respect for anomalous speculation. It's just lazy speculative reasoning that never manages to reconcile poop. The notion of commonality roots itself in the PAST where discovery exists temporally as being a WAS. The only self sustaining and proved inevitable trait associated with our progress as a civilization is ongoing revision and change with respect to our temporal present developmental status. Allow for the intellectual birthing of that which is para/contemporary capacities and fixations. Don't allow the knowledge barrier to philosophically cloak what's just beyond your limited contextual knowledge based precept in applied understanding.

" I said was "I tend toward a terrestrial source, an experiment but I am far from being convinced of this."

So what are you refuting?

You lost me."

Niagara Falls...step by step...

No refutations and much salutations Sir, just more of a philosophical underpinning on my part really. Intellectual engagement rooted in the sincerest of respectful philosophical discourse.

I'll leave you with one of my favorite quotes that I interpret to bear greatly on speculative reasoning as it applies to anomalous events.

According to one M.C. Escher: "Only those who attempt the absurd will achieve the impossible. I think it's in my basement... let me go upstairs and check."